§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—/Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
2.30 pm§ Mr.Peter Bruinvels (Leicester, East)Adjournment debates usually relate to a local issue in an hon. Member's constituency, but my choice of subject concerns everyone in the country, as we all read and need our daily papers.
We live in the age of television, but I maintain that television has not made tremendous inroads into the newspaper industry. However, the country has been given more and more news through local radio and newspapers, including free newspapers.
More than 69 per cent. of people read a daily newspaper. Recent statistics show 38.3 million reading a daily paper—3 million taking a quality paper and 35.3 million reading a popular paper. More than one in two read an evening paper. For example, more than 74 per cent. of Leicester homes take the popular Leicester Mercury.
However, despite those impressive statistics and some high circulation figures for papers such as The Sun, all is not well in the newspaper industry. None of our well-known papers can be assured of continued success, and regular availability at every local newsagent is sometimes uncertain.
Prestige papers such as The Times cannot always make enough money. Because of the lack of advertising, the income of popular papers such as The Sun is small. At The Times, advertising rates bring in money. Both sorts of paper depend on sales, and newspapers have encouraging circulation wars. However, despite the determination to keep going, large increases in the costs of production and, therefore, in cover prices have reduced the number of people taking more than one paper.
The industry is reputed to be losing about £30 million a year, as Fleet street bosses surrender time after time to the union bully boys who claim that they care about their particular paper, yet go on strike at a moment's notice over an extra £10 a day allowance and thereby cripple the industry as it fights to survive.
The frightening powers of those unions means that a stoppage at any time results in substantial losses which the proprietors claim they can never recoup. There were 17 stoppages in 1979, 17 in 1980, 13 in 1981, 12 in 1982 and 25 in 1983, of which five were in November. Days lost through industrial action in the industry totalled 644,000 in 1979, 128,000 in 1980, 13,000 in 1981, 15,000 in 1982 and a provisional estimate of 39,000 in 1983.
The situation cannot be tolerated any longer. The Financial Times lost £10.1 million in 1983 through one of those kamikaze stoppages. Hon. Members would not be far wrong in considering that Fleet street industrial relations are in a state of anarchy.
The NGA dispute with the Stockport Messenger group in 1983 saw thuggery on the picket lines, but, for a change, a united front by the newspaper companies which sued the NGA for maximum damages under the Employment Act 1982 for the union members' unlawful industrial action in halting the production of national newspapers on 25 and 26 November—an estimated £10 million loss caused by strikes against Mr. Eddie Shah. Another stoppage occurred on 29 February 1984—the day following the TUC's so-called day of inaction—with the loss of all London editions of national newspapers following action 710 by the AUEW engineers, demonstrating solidarity with the trade union movement against Government action at GCHQ. As recently as 12 April, there was no London printing of the Daily Express and the Daily Star as a result of a dispute involving members of the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades working in warehouses. The Times group lost £40 million in the 11 months during the closure of The Times in 1978–79.
Although some disputes may last only a day or two, the results can be catastrophic for the industry. Fleet street continually suffers from regular distribution shortfalls, and I fear that the blame must always lie with the unions. Fleet street's wages bill will rise by more than 12 per cent. this year to about £530 million, without any reduction in manning levels. There is, therefore, fierce competition, and each national newspaper must now depend on regular publishing.
Price rises are always on the horizon. The national newspapers have to remain competitively priced. But how can they when they pay such amazingly high wages to Fleet street compositors? They are paid, on average, £548 a week, and £200 for a Saturday night on the Sunday newspapers. Many of them run from one newspaper to another giving fictitious names, such as Mickey Mouse, and abusing the tax system. The newspaper proprietors must put an end to that practice as a matter of urgency. I welcome the presence of my hon. Friend the Minister. I hope that together we can do something about that.
Some people have expressed concern that nearly 85 per cent. of all Sunday and daily newspapers printed for the national market should be owned by just seven firms. I see nothing wrong with that, if only they would act together for a change and stop the shocking abuse of trade union power. If more managers could be effectively de-unionised, chapel power would be significantly reduced, and strikes would have far less impact. The national newspapers should be able to recruit the best people. That is normal procedure outside Fleet street, but I am afraid that the reverse is true in Fleet street. The unions and chapels fill a vacancy in production without reference to management. That is a strange employment practice.
We must also look to new technology. Newspapers, certainly in the provinces, have begun preparing for that. Incidentally, they have done so without the co-operation of the unions. Staff are being trained to ensure that newspapers can be produced without the presence of any union members. Although that is possible with some provisional newspapers, a break with the printing trade unions for the national newspapers remains extremely difficult. The issue, of course, is direct keying, where journalists type directly into a computer through electronic keyboards —the main cause of the dispute that shut down The Times for so long. The National Graphical Association must be the most affected, as one would no longer need the hot metal lino-type system. Of course, the NGA fears huge job losses. The Nottinghamshire Evening Post went ahead with the scheme, only to be immediately blacked by the NGA and the National Union of Journalists. But the new technology would ensure regular newspapers free of trade union interference.
However, employers still reckon that the new technology would create more newspapers, providing jobs for the redundant production workers. The attitude of Sogat '82 to the new technology is questionable. It accepts 711 that an extra 200 jobs might be created in London, but it fears that many more will be lost in Scotland, as Scottish home-based newspapers come under competition.
Newspapers would certainly shift the cost from production to marketing, with those workers who are afraid of being made redundant being given marketing jobs instead. Increased competitiveness in the newspaper publishing industry would eventually create many more jobs. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Information Technology recently confirmed at a Newspaper Society lunch, having up-to-date news, more efficient classified advertising, and producing more pages more cheaply will result in a likely rise in circulation and increased advertising revenue. He told the Newspaper Society, "either modernise or fossilise".
The point in question is a single union, and the desperate need for one. In 1982, we saw the amalgamation of the old NGA craft union with the Society of Lithographic Artists, Designers, Engravers and Process Workers to form NGA 1982. Also in July 1982 SOGAT merged with NATSOPA to become Sogat '82 which now has a membership of 203,524. I should like the printing industry to have one union, but I am conscious that that will take time. The unions are archaic and the system in Fleet street is unsatisfactory because Fleet street still regards the NGA as the monopoly supplier and, in effect, controller of labour, retaining its de facto firing rights.
Newspapers cannot afford to be blackmailed by printing unions. During the recent Financial Times stoppage, over £14 million was lost. What were the views of the NUJ and the other unions? If there had been only one union, I doubt whether the strike would have taken place.
The Royal Commission on the press in 1977 stated that many of the problems of the newspaper industry originated in the conflict between the economic need for newspapers to convert to new technologies and the unions' desire to protect their members' employment and high redundancy payments.
It is depressing that a small interruption in one of the many processes involved in producing a national newspaper can completely halt production. The future is vital to the industry. The Newspaper Publishers Association must become stronger and more effective. It must act with one voice. There should be a single production union resulting from the amalgamation of Sogat '82, the NGA and the NUJ. There should be fewer chapels and greater consultation between members. Union members must be made to realise that strikes lose, not keep, jobs.
Fortunately, we live in a free society. The unions must realise that the blacking of certain articles is censorship of the worst kind. Have they never heard of Voltaire? Britain needs editorial freedom in its press. Proprietors and unions must never be allowed to dictate editorial policy. I am glad that the difficulties and differences at The Observer have been settled.
With the advent of free sheets, 580 local free papers produce 24 million copies a week. The newspaper industry must wake up to the change. The country knows that the Fleet Street work force is overpaid, overlarge and protected by the most remarkable restrictive practices. More newspapers will die unless we fight force with force.
712 The unions are politically motivated. I have no doubt that they oppose the capitalist system and the successful capitalist proprietors They will fight for a state-owned press, no doubt telling the editors what to put in local and national papers. They give no warning when they go on strike. The first thing that we know is when we go to our newsagent and find that a paper is not there waiting for us. That is sad for the newspaper industry.
I was worried greatly by the AUEW stoppage on 28 February 1984. It resulted in the loss of all the London editions of national newspapers. Was that in defence of democracy? Opposition Members tabled a motion supporting that action. I believe that we are entitled to know what is going on in the country. We are entitled to be able to read our newspapers and to listen to the radio. Such action must never be allowed to happen again.
Some hon. Members will be surprised to learn that The Sun lost £600,000 on that day of action—or inaction—The Guardian lost £100,000, and many other newspapers lost sums amounting to tens of thousands of pounds. As The Times leader said
Unless every individual within this industry changes his attitude, it will no longer be a question of whether or not Fleet Street will die by its own hand, but when.
§ The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer)This is the third occasion in less than a year on which I have found myself replying to an Adjournment debate about industrial relations in the newspaper publishing industry. On the first occasion I replied to a speech by my late right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, South-West, Mr. Macmillan, about the strike which put the Financial Times off the streets for nine weeks last summer, including the run-up to the last general election. On the second occasion I replied to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Montgomery) about the disgraceful campaign by the National Graphical Association designed to impose a closed shop on the employees of the Stockport Messenger group of newspapers against their clearly expressed wishes. Now, in the debate this afternoon, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) has drawn the House's attention to the baleful state of industrial relations in the newspaper industry. It is not surprising that all three debates have been initiated by Conservative Members. It is, however, surprising that the Opposition spokesman on these matters did not find it necessary to be present today. This is a matter of great importance to the democracy of Britain.
One sadness with which we are faced is the constant attacks upon newspaper proprietors. It is suggested that because there are so few of them they hold too much power. One of the fundamental reasons for their small number is the excessive cost of running a newspaper—something that has been forced upon the industry partially, of course, by the unwillingness of proprietors to stand up to pressure from trade unions, but largely because of an attitude towards the industry that is a shame to the whole trade union movement.
Those of us who support the essential importance of trade unions, especially in defending individuals who cannot, on their own, defend themselves, and those of us who believe that a trade union movement is an essential part of a democratic society, must be among the first to criticise those unions that betray the very basis of their 713 purpose. It is sad that the trade unions that are operative in Fleet street appear time after time to have undermined the very reason for the rise and importance of the trade union movement.
It is because a small group of individuals have been prepared to defend their jobs against all new technology, or to charge for the kindness of changing practices to fit new technology, that the number of jobs in the newspaper industry has shrunk to a level that it need never have reached. Those of us who are concerned for the expansion of employment in Britain—and any Minister in my Department must have that as a first priority—must be worried to see an industry that should be growing shrink away when there is no necessity for it to do so.
My hon. Friend pointed to a whole range of examples where the use of power, which comes so easily in an industry where the loss of a single day's production can have a huge effect upon the viability of newspapers, has been used against the interests of working people and has reduced the opportunities for the jobs that we so desperately need.
I was pleased that my hon. Friend also pointed to one of the uses of that power that we have seen recently. At a time when, at long last, inflation is falling to levels that are beginning to reach the position that we seek—4 or 5 per cent.—to discuss wage rises of 12 per cent. means that that industry is stealing jobs from other people. That is what happens if we take more out of society than is available. There is no sign of the significant improvements in productivity sought by my hon. Friend to justify such a rise. It must be true that such a rise would be paid for, not necessarily, specifically or directly by jobs in that industry, but by jobs throughout the country as a whole.
Any explanation of the way in which job expansion in the United States has taken place during the past few years will bring us to the clear conclusion that we often have a direct choice between an increase in wages and a decrease in jobs. If we are prepared to hold wages to a sensible level, we may have found a way to put our neighbours into jobs. In this industry, the activities of trade unionists have sadly put the interests of those in jobs against the interests of those without a job. The selfish approach of that attitude must be one of our concerns.
In this industry, the closed shop appears in its worst pre-entry form and effectively exercises a stranglehold. It means that employers have almost no control over whom they recruit, because recruitment is in the hands of the union. That means that if one wants a job, one dare not fall out with the union that controls that job. What little power belongs to the press lords is divided among several of them, but the power of the union to provide or not to provide a job is in the hands of a small group of people, and each union, because of the divisions in the industry, has a monopoly over the provision of work for that section of the working population.
In a democracy a large question mark must hang over something like that, for it is a power over other people's lives that must be justified most seriously if it is a power that we are prepared to accept. I believe that union members often do not step out of line when they know that what the union has demanded of them is bad for themselves, for the industry, for employment and for democracy because they know that that would expose them to the possibility of not being able to work again. That is at the core of the power that certain unions maintain over their members.
714 The closed shop enables unions to continue to operate related closed shop practices such as the NGA's so-called "fair list". It is about the most misnamed list that I have ever come across. It seeks to prevent work from going to any firm in the industry that does not operate a tight pre-entry closed shop with the union. The only thing that was missing from my hon. Friend's admirable exposé of the problems of the industry was the fact that this concept —which has now become central to the trade unions in this important part of our democracy—of what we have we hold is devastatingly opposed to the interests of working people and to the very interests for which those unions were set up. It says that there may be no expansion of the industry based on new opportunity, new methods of competition or new provision of services that is not tightly controlled by those who already have monopolistic power.
How hon. Members on the almost empty Labour Benches have dared to attack some of the professional monopolies without mentioning this monopoly, I fail to understand. I look forward to the time when the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) introduces a Bill on the subject. However, I do not think that we shall see it, because, for some reason or another, it has become acceptable for excessive power to be wielded by trade unions within the industry, but any power exercised by anybody else comes under immediate scrutiny and attack.
The sad thing is that this detracts from the independence of the newspaper industry more powerfully than any other element. Those of us who have watched carefully the recent developments in the industry have some misgivings about a number of the most widely heralded arguments, but we should also be concerned about the power wielded by those who use the trade unions' name to cover the kind of closed shop that can be seen only as an extension of the selfish protection of those who hold the jobs rather than as an extension of the number of jobs for others.
The effects of these arrangements show up not merely in the poor industrial relations record of the newspaper industry, but in the fact that the very survival of many newspapers is threatened by the outdated methods of production which continue in force. That is where the jobs are lost. Unless one begins to change the systems used in newspapers, there is no chance of providing more opportunities for different views to be put over.
It is the narrowness of opportunity which the stranglehold of trade unions on the newspaper industry ensures which does so much damage. Those words do not come from a party political source. It is perhaps best illustrated by Joe Wade — not a member of the Conservative party — who told his 1982 biennial delegates meeting:
We cannot ignore the fact that we are coming under increasing pressure both from national and provincial newspapers for the acceptance of single key stroking, on the ground that this is essential if newspapers are to retain their viability and to save jobs… So we now face a situation which is absolutely critical. We need to ask ourselves the question: how long can we remain the last bastion of double key stroking in the world?—because this is exactly what we are.That means that the British newspaper industry—the guardian of our democratic way of life, the fourth estate and the group of publications which, more importantly than any other, ensures that the House does its job properly and that Ministers and Back Benchers do not get away with conduct which is other than straight and clear—shall be put in jeopardy by the most old-fashioned, antediluvian trade union practices in Europe, if not in the free world.715 That is the real battle facing the newspaper industry. That is why, among other reasons, the Government set out in the 1980 and 1982 Employment Acts to provide employers in the newspaper industry, amongst others, with the means to help themselves. However, I do not look with favour at the concept that somehow or other someone from outside can force the kind of union upon the industry that we should like to see. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend's proposition is necessarily the right answer. However, the only hope for the industry is to see employers beginning to be the managers which they ought to have been over a long period. It is essential that the industry begins to be again the sort of industry where management manages. That seems to have been one of the failures in the past.
We have sought to reduce the influence of the closed shop in a number of ways. We have given union members in a closed shop a right not to be unreasonably expelled from their union. How important that is where a man's job is on the line! Our code of practice on the closed shop makes it clear, in effect, that expulsion for refusing to take part in unlawful industrial action or in action which has not been supported in a ballot is unreasonable. Even more important, from 1 November the dismissal of any employee for non-membership of a trade union in a closed shop will automatically be unfair unless the closed shop has been approved overwhelmingly in a secret ballot. That alone should ensure that closed shops in the newspaper industry and elsewhere cease to have any effective hold in practice over those whom they cover unless they are genuinely wanted by the employees concerned.
One of our concerns is that not only is this damaging to those who work in the industry, not only that it removes 716 the opportunity of jobs for those from outside and not only that it makes ours the most reactionary newspaper industry in the world, but that it gives the power to some to force upon others actions which they know are damaging and dangerous to themselves and to the industry which they seek to serve.
As for related practices such as the NGA's so-called fair list, the 1982 Act makes it unlawful for a trade union to organise or threaten industrial action by the employees of one firm which interferes with a supply of goods or services on the ground that work in connection with that supply is being done by persons outside the firm who are not union members. This provision generally outlaws, amongst other things, the blacking of work from nonunion sources. Any person or company suffering as a result of such unlawful action can seek an injunction or damages against the union concerned.
Looking at those and a whole range of other ways in which in our recent trade union reform we have begun to give to the individual union member power over the union which is supposed to represent him, we are beginning to see the changes which can take place in the newspaper industry. Those changes are essential. If we do not make them, we shall condemn the country to a smaller and smaller number of newspapers, a smaller and smaller range of views and a tighter and tighter control over jobs which will restrict jobs to those who have them and remove and keep out all those who should have the opportunity of working.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Three o' clock till Tuesday 8 May, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of 5 April.